Personalization and customization of electronics and communication devices is a continuing trend. Wireless telephone users can customize the color and graphics of their telephones' body and display. Further, most wireless telephones allow the user to select from a number of ring signals to alert the user of an incoming call. The ring signals may range from standard two-second ring tones separated by four seconds of silence, to playing a jingle or a portion of a song. Although most wireless telephones have available caller identification, there is no association between the incoming caller and the type of ring signal alerting the user to the incoming call. The ring signal configuration for these telephones is the same for all incoming calls.
Certain business and residential telephone configurations are capable of providing different ring signals to help determine the party to whom an incoming call is directed. This configuration is particularly useful when two or more people share a common telephone or telephone line. Although these telephones may have different ring signals to determine to whom the incoming call is directed, there is no association between the calling party and the ring signal provided by the telephone.
As with wireless telephones, most business and residential telephone services support caller identification (caller ID). Although these caller ID services may be customized to block incoming calls where the caller ID is not provided, there is little opportunity to customize these telephony services. With caller ID, the only way to determine the identity of a calling party is to view the telephone display providing the caller ID information. As such, viewing caller ID information poses a significant safety hazard when driving or participating in other activities.
Given the desire to customize communication devices and the inherent limitations of existing caller identification, there is a need to customize the ring signal provided by a telephone based on the calling party. There is a further need to provide an efficient and user-friendly way to provide and implement these customization services.